The Serpent of Venice Read online

  “Sor-ry,” said he. Then, “Never up the bum!” he mimicked in my very own voice, a habit which I discouraged by batting him about his great empty noggin with my puppet stick.

  After what seemed like a long enough time, I tucked my yellow hat into my coat, picked up the whore’s lantern, and followed her path through the doors of the brothel, where a large arm, attached to a large sturdy ruffian, blocked my way.

  “She forgot her lantern,” said I, bobbing the lantern. “Uh, she—”

  “Charity,” the ruffian provided.

  “Charity? Really? That’s a salty sluice of shark wank,” said I with incredulity.

  “Charity’s working the door tonight,” said the ruffian.

  “Yes, Charity,” said I. “That’s what I meant. She’s asked me to bring in her lantern.”

  “Go then,” said the ruffian, obviously chosen more for his size than his interrogatory skills. Where had the rubbish ruffian guards been when I was slinging intrigue in court and castle?

  “Ta,” said I, sallying forth, through a bacchanalian crush of traders and tarts in the throes of debauchery over cushions and couches, across the main rooms and even up the great marble staircase. I found Lorenzo in a parlor on the second floor, standing by a window, while Antonio and two of his friends sat side by side on a wide couch, being serviced by a trio of whores, whose heads bobbed in their laps like net floats in a choppy sea. The two younger men—Gratiano on one end and Bassanio in the middle—were completely lost in their pleasure, heads thrown back, eyes closed, arms over the back of the divan, wine goblets sloshing as the girls worked on them, Gratiano thrusted in the air in rhythm with the girl’s movements, but Antonio, ah, Antonio was not floating away on his pleasure, but had his gaze trained on Bassanio, as if looking away might shatter a connection. His left hand was pressed against the younger man’s chest, in his right he gripped a wine goblet as if it were a hammer at the forge. The young ginger tart might be the one doing the work, but Antonio’s passion was focused on Bassanio.

  The bloody obviousness of it all was embarrassing. How had I missed it? Of course. A rich, unmarried man keeps constant company with young male protégés who little assist him in his business—of course he was a pooft! Why he didn’t just drag one of them into his apartments and bugger the daylights out of him was beyond me, but strange are the ways of the heart. Tragic, really, that he had to buy the boy a bride, rather than take her himself and reveal his tastes to all of Venice. Well, when he was revealed to be a most heinous scoundrel, he could rest easy about the revelation of his sexual tastes. I’ll wager having an angry Jew carve out your sweetmeats before the court will take a bloke’s mind off all manner of romance.

  Lorenzo had noticed me watching his mentor and stepped away from his window, presumably to come to the gallant rescue of his friends’ blow jobs, when I pulled the note from my coat and held it so he could see the wax menorah on the seal. “From Jessica,” said I.

  He stepped up to me, showing his back to his friends, and snatched the note from my hand.

  “She said I wasn’t to leave until I heard your answer. I’ll wait for you downstairs, by the bridge to the left of the entrance.” I looked down my nose at him in what I hoped was a haughty manner. I couldn’t be sure, as I had not done much looking down my nose at chaps, but on the chopines, I was a full head taller than Lorenzo, so I was savoring the experience. Lorenzo was a handsome rascal, with his neatly trimmed, pointy black beard and his broad shoulders, but even if I were in my own shoes he’d stand only a hand or so taller than me. I would tease Jessica mercilessly about it when I saw her. Her little miniature merchant. Ha!

  “Outside then,” said I, as he broke the seal, and I turned and spotted Charity, the girl from the front door, who had been intercepted by a pair of ancient lechers who were pawing at her like palsied monkeys, which explained why she hadn’t returned with Lorenzo in good time. I caught her eye and assured that she saw me set her lantern on a table, then made my way out of the brothel and off to the left to a stone bridge over the narrow canal that lay mostly in shadow. The lamps from the brothel and the windows above cast just enough light so I could see the landings cut into the stone at the side, a step down, where gondolas could load and unload their fares. In the dark, the landings below the bridge were perfect alcoves for conspiracy.

  In a moment, Lorenzo appeared in the archway of the brothel. I whistled, waved when he saw me, and he quickly made his way across the courtyard and down the steps to the landing.

  “Can I trust you?” he asked.

  “She gave me the note, didn’t she?”

  “But you know not its contents.” He had the note in hand and was waving it under my nose.

  “You two are to run off together with a chest of her father’s gold and jewels?”

  He looked stunned, but nodded. “Then I will not write my reply. Tell Jessica I will come to her father’s house on the night of the Carnival of Michaelmas. Her father will be out that evening, having dinner with Antonio, it is already agreed. There will be hundreds of boats in the lagoon and everyone will be in costume, so no one on La Giudecca will be the wiser. Tell her to have everything she needs ready, and to disguise herself as a boy. It will make our passage easier. I have secured our passage to Cyprus on a ship leaving on the morning tide.”

  “I will take her this message, but first a favor.”

  “You are Jessica’s servant, you will do as you are told.”

  “Antonio knows, then, that you are running off with Shylock’s daughter? Or shall I tell him?”

  “Tell him. He will congratulate me on my cleverness.”

  “And Shylock knows?”

  “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “Yes, of course. Do keep up, Lorenzo. We’ll never accomplish any proper skullduggery if I have to keep reviewing the bloody process.”

  I could tell he was scowling, even in the fractured moonlight. “What do you want?”

  “I need to speak with Bassanio, now, here, secretly, and I need you to endorse my proposal to him, which does nothing but further his interest and my own.”

  “I cannot promise that he will go along. Why would he trust you? You’re a Jew, aren’t you?”

  “Just like your Jessica. Go tell him that you met a man who can tell him which casket will win his lady.”

  “I know about the caskets,” said Lorenzo. “You’re talking nonsense. I’ve told him to find another rich girl.” Lorenzo, evidently, was not party to Antonio’s inner circle or the greater conspiracy with Iago. He might not even know about Drool and Jeff.

  “Tell Bassanio,” said I. “He will want to see me. I will wait for him here.”

  “Convey my message to Jessica and no word to Shylock, then?” said Lorenzo, letting a hand fall inside his doublet, from which he pulled the hilt of a dagger just far enough for me to see that he had it. Apparently, like most of the merchants I had met in Venice, to Lorenzo the law was a necessary restriction to facilitate trade, but beyond that applied only to the stevedores and tradesmen when it came to weapons or honor.

  “Not a word to Shylock,” said I.

  Lorenzo marched up the stairs from the landing, across the courtyard, and back into the brothel, casting glances back my way as he went, as if he’d forgotten something. Which, of course, he had. He’d dropped his note to Jessica when he reached for his dagger, thinking, perhaps, he’d tucked it into his doublet. I picked it up from the cobblestones and was surprised by a gondolier who was poling his boat under the bridge, a lantern at its bow casting an orange sphere of light around it as it passed by. I nodded to the boatman, and he to me.

  “Buona sera, signor,” said he, with a smile, seeing he’d startled me.

  “Buona sera,” I said, pulling my hat from my coat and bowing over it. When the boatman saw the hat, the smile fell from his lips and I tucked it away again. “Aren’t you supposed to be bloody singing?” said I. “Marauding through the canals like a cutpurse, thou sneaky ship rat! Vermin!”
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  “Jew!” barked the boatman.

  “That’s not even a proper insult, that’s just looking at something and saying what it is, thou pole-pushing wank-wally!”

  I hadn’t heard him coming at all, yet the Grand Canal from where he’d made his turn was a hundred yards away. This watery town could be right spooky at night.

  “You asked for me?” came a voice from behind. I whirled around, nearly lost my balance on the chopines and had to grab the underside of the bridge to keep from going over into the canal. Bassanio stood on the cobbles at the top of the stairs.

  “Oh, right,” said I. I was either going deaf or these Venetian fish-floggers were taught stealth from a very early age.

  “I know you,” said he. “You’re the small Jew who brought the gold to Antonio’s this afternoon.”

  “Smaller Jew,” I corrected. “Those were enormous fucking Jews I was with, you have to admit, so I am at least above average in size.” It seemed pointless to be walking all over Venice on stilts if I was still going to be the tiny one.

  “Lorenzo says you know something of the caskets at Belmont?”

  “I know you will make a play for Portia’s hand, and you’ve only the funds for one throw of the dice.”

  “That’s no secret,” said Bassanio. “Lorenzo says you have a way to gain advantage.”

  “I do,” said I.

  “And what would your price be for such advantage? You already know that the three thousand ducats at risk are borrowed against the life of my friend.”

  “Ah, but once you have won the fair Portia, and her dowry, then the ducats will be as a raindrop in a tempest of wealth, will they not? Only then will I seek payment.”

  “Payment of?”

  “A thousand ducats.”

  “Very dear, a thousand ducats,” said he.

  “Not so dear to use as bait to catch a hundred thousand and such a beauty as Portia, whose value is beyond gold.”

  “No, not so much,” he said. “How will you give me advantage?”

  “The caskets are sealed with wax, and watched over by the senator’s lawyers, are they not?”

  “That is so.”

  “Have you seen them?”

  “I have a comrade who has word from Portia’s maid that they are on a high veranda, which is locked at night; from morning until dusk whenever the door to the veranda is unlocked, they are watched by Brabantio’s lawyers, who confirm the wax seals and will reseal the caskets if a suitor chooses the wrong one. I’m at my wits’ end. A prince of Morocco will make a try Wednesday, and my turn does not come until the day after, and if he chooses correctly—”

  “Calm yourself, good Bassanio,” said I. “He will not choose correctly, because the correct choice shall not be there for him. I will see to it.”

  “How?”

  I held forth the note that Lorenzo had dropped. “This was given to me sealed, to bring to Lorenzo; I’m sure he gave testimony to my discretion.”

  “He said you could be trusted.”

  “I can be trusted if the price is right,” I corrected. “And the price shall be one thousand ducats, after you marry Portia and take possession of her fortune.”

  “Agreed. How will you do it?”

  Now the tightrope to walk, to reveal the special set of skills that I had acquired without giving up so much that should it get back to Antonio, who might suspect the royal fool was still among the quick. Had I boasted to Antonio of my training as a cutpurse and a burglar? And as a forger, trained by monks at the abbey at Dog Snogging to copy manuscripts? I couldn’t remember. Perhaps if I had done less drinking during my tenure in the sinking city . . .

  I might have said, “I will scale the walls, climb onto the veranda, razor off the seals, discern the content, and report back to you which casket to choose.” Which was, in fact, what I would do, but which also would require that I divulge details of a very unlikely past for a Venetian Jew, so I went with a more direct explanation.

  “Monkeys,” said I.

  “Monkeys?” he repeated.

  “Surely you’ve seen the thieving monkeys of Giudecca, at least heard of them? We Jews have been training them since the time of King David. How do you think we gain our wealth?”

  “Monkeys?” repeated Bassanio, like some simpleton with a single word in his repertoire.

  “Signor, I tell you, I have worked all my life in the training of the thieving monkeys, and I know they are equal to the task. They will ascend to the veranda, razor open the caskets with their clever monkey hands, reseal them, leaving them undetected, and report to me their contents, which I will report to you.”

  “How?”

  “I just bloody told you, you nitwit, they’ll scale the bloody walls—”

  “No, how will they report?”

  Bollocks. I hadn’t thought out that bit. “Hebrew,” I explained.

  “Your thieving monkeys speak Hebrew?”

  “No, of course not. You see, the Hebrew language, in its written form, was originally developed from a series of stamps made from monkeys’ paws. The entire alphabet can be printed with a monkey hand dipped in ink. That’s how they report. It has always been so. You should see the inner walls of La Giudecca, covered with their monkey profanities in Hebrew.” I paused, breathless from my bullshit, and held forth Jessica’s note again, pointing to the seal, which was stamped with a menorah. “See the four fingers on each side and the monkey thumbs on the side?”

  “I do see,” said the handsome, yet deeply stupid young merchant. “Make it so—what is your name?”

  “Lancelot,” said I, extending my hand. “Lancelot Gobbo.”

  “A thousand ducats, Lancelot Gobbo,” said Bassanio.

  “You shall receive a message before you depart for Belmont, revealing which casket holds the lady’s picture.”

  “I will be at Antonio’s.”

  “One more thing, Bassanio, now that we are partners. I require information.”

  “I’ve told you what I know of the caskets. I know Portia fancies me, what more—”

  I raised my hand to silence him. “A month ago three of your friends went to the apartments of the English fool and took away the great simpleton and his monkey, do you know of this?”

  “Aye, I sent Gratiano and the two Sals to fetch the giant and his monkey. They put them on a ship to Marseilles. Bought passage for them in the cargo hold.”

  “And your friends actually did that? The natural left Venice unharmed?”

  “Well, yes, he left unharmed, but that was the ship.”

  “That was the what ship?”

  “That was the ship taken last month by the Genoans at Curzola. All the passengers are in a Genoan prison being held for ransom. Word is all over the Rialto. There was a prominent Venetian merchant onboard with the other passengers.”

  “So the giant is in a Genoan prison?”

  “He was listed as a hostage on the ransom demand that arrived with the news only a few days ago.”

  “Fuckstockings!” said I.

  Bassanio left me on the landing, cursing in the night, still holding Lorenzo’s note from Jessica.

  * It’s AD 1299. “Around the World” hasn’t been invented yet.

  ELEVEN

  Siren Ascending

  CHORUS:

  Gondola knifes through vasty night

  Past dying stars of lantern light

  And distant cries of tart’s delight

  Ride drunken songs to bawdy heights.

  Beneath a bridge doth stand the fool,

  Crafting plans to free young Drool.

  By stealth or guile or cutting throats,

  No plots commence without a boat.

  “Fuckstockings, I have no boat,” I said to the night. And no money even to pay the ferryman to take me back to La Giudecca. I’d hoped to use the ducat I’d taken from Tubal’s chest for fare and other expenses, but in a fit of bloody bollock-brained stupidity, I’d given it to the landlady to shore up the reputation of a poor, unjus
tly maligned fool.

  Poor fool. Poor heartbroken fool. The fall from king to beggar was but a tender tumble compared to losing my love. Now, for lack of a penny, my reason to live, my revenge, would wither?

  I think not! Bassanio could advance me coin for dirty deeds yet to be delivered. I made my way up the stairs from the landing, across the courtyard and through the entrance, where Charity had yet to return. I nodded to the ruffian at the door, now that we were mates, and spotted Bassanio holding court amongst a gang of his friends, Lorenzo and the two Sals among them.

  “Need to have a word with Bassanio,” said I to the doorman.

  But before I could cross the room, Salarino, or perhaps it was Salanio—one of the two fat fucks—boomed, “So, Lorenzo, the Carnival of Michaelmas is the last we shall see of you? Off to Cyprus to father half-Jew babies?”

  “Nay, I’ll have the pleasure of her Jewish trim and her father’s treasure, and be back in your company before a fortnight has passed.”

  “Have you seen her?” said Bassanio to the group. “But for her birth, Lorenzo’s Jessica would be a treasure in herself. As fit in form and figure as any in Venice.”

  “She is like a swordfish flashing brilliant at the end of the fisherman’s line,” said Lorenzo, sloshing his wine as he pointed to a direction where he guessed the sea might be. “She is to be treasured only until she has been enjoyed, then cast back, just beak and bones, to the sea. And the fortune with which I am left will suit me to a wife of proper Christian birth, and a hundred whores to boot.” Lorenzo had raised his goblet again to toast his own good fortune when he spotted me by the door.

  “Bassanio seems otherwise engaged,” said I to the doorman. Perhaps I would find my fee for the ferryman another way. I spun on one foot, a maneuver made easier by Jessica’s chopines, and headed back out the door. I trotted across the courtyard pavers as fast as the stilts would allow, the wooden feet beating a clop-clop rhythm that echoed off the buildings.

  I was halfway to the bridge when I heard the heavy footfalls coming behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see Lorenzo and one of the portly Sals breaking into a run after me. By habit, I reached for the daggers at the small of my back, but alas, they were not there. I cursed Brabantio’s rat-eaten soul yet again.